Column: Tales from Exit 22

Patsy Cline was falling to pieces on the radio.

I wasn’t doing any better.

At best, I was mildly vexed.

The day had been going well. I had set a mousetrap that was so complicated that it caught only smart mice. I had spilled french dressing on myself. That would have been a black tooth in an otherwise perfect smile, but, luckily, I was wearing lettuce at the time. I hadn’t yet stood in front of the microwave oven and yelled, “Come on!” It was all good.

Life moves us like chess pieces. I went from contented bliss to bewilderment.

I was searching the manor for my favorite shirt. Every man has one. It’s that shirt that a guy would wear every day if he could get away with it. You know the one. It doesn’t matter if it’s dirty, wrinkled, tattered, inappropriate or clashes with what he’s wearing. He’d still wear it as long as it didn’t smell as appalling as a junior high gym locker. We wear such shirts because men enjoy making bold fashion statements.

I couldn’t find the shirt. I always think I can find it but I’m never successful. I’m unable to fathom the vastness of an ever-changing universe. Eventually, my confidence fell victim to experience. I became convinced of my inability to find the shirt. I was forced to do what husbands do. The procedure is defined on page 73 of the Official Handbook for the American Husband. I yelled to my wife, “Where is it?”

“Where is what?” she replied.

Where is what? Why does she torment me so when everyone knows that wives are mind readers? I rephrased my question, turning my bellow to mellow, “Honey, do you know where my good shirt is?”

“Which one is your good shirt?” she asked back.

“It’s the one that’s some kind of a blue and is missing a button.”

“Where did you have it last?” she said.

What kind of question is that? She could just as well have asked me if I looked where it was. I didn’t answer.

“Have you looked in your closet?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. I had, honest. I bit my tongue to keep from adding, “Duh.”

My lovely bride added, “It should be between that nice gray shirt that you never wear even though it looks so nice on you and that raggedy denim one that you insist on wearing even when I roll my eyes.”

A nice gray shirt? I didn’t even know I had a gray shirt, nice or otherwise. Raggedy denim? That might be true. I tend to keep old clothes. I have many moths to feed. Eye rolling should cause me to take a critical look at my wardrobe but it doesn’t. Amongst my many failings, it’s a minor one. I looked between those two shirts and there it was, my favorite shirt that’s some kind of a blue and is missing a button. That was probably where I had it last. Where it had been when I’d looked earlier, I’ll never know, but I am developing a conspiracy theory.

My wife has a crystal ball. It’s invisible and it allows her to find hidden things. She is the family memory. She remembers holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, when storms happened, when bad things or good things occurred, the names of all of my cousin’s ex-wives, passwords, what day of the week it is and whose turn it is to feed the goldfish. She knows what we are running low on. She checks the levels of things. She not only finds things, she gives their GPS coordinates. I can call her and she furnishes the locations of things over the telephone.

I retain such information for as long as flyswatters hold water. Men have deficiencies. Each of us has certain inadequacies. Fortunately, I’ve misplaced mine.

My She Who Must Be Obeyed is a conjurer. Magicians become famous for making things disappear. My wife is more like the magician who pulls a rabbit from a hat. She makes things appear. She can pull a shirt that’s some kind of a blue and is missing a button out of my closet.

I’m not saying that I never find anything. I find things that I’m not looking for. I’d make more of an effort to find my shirt that’s some kind of a blue and is missing a button but I don’t want to disrupt the magic.

I love my wife. I’d be lost without her and so would that favorite shirt of mine that’s some kind of a blue and is missing a button.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Sunday and Wednesday.